5th Post: Best practices for restaurants’ blogging

After creating blog or tweet, people need to promote it and maintain it to readers to enter to the blog or tweet frequently. On this blog, I will discuss how to successful on your blog. Restaurant also need to do practice to their social media and try to promote their blog. Here are the best practices for blogging.

1. Grab the readers’ attention immediately – Catching readers’ attention is the first step. Let more customers access to my blog and start to promote blog.

2. Breakup your text with bullets and numbered lists – Everyone loves a list. If there is a way to organize your post with bullets and numbers, do it! This can let customers understand easily restaurants’ promotion.

3. Keywords matter –Try to brainstorm phrases you might want associated with your blog or company’s website. You can even try searching phrases before you write a title to see if anyone else has claim to them.

4. Write about what you know – Write about what you know, what you are passionate about, or what you feel most compelled to tell others. You’ve got the megaphone, use it wisely!

5. Refer to other blog posts and articles –Find something that caught your eye and you’d like to comment on? Write a blog post about it. You don’t have to agree with the other post you are referring to some of the best.

6. What do you read? – Shape your own blog posts and articles around things that you find interest in reading. Read blogs related to your industry and see what information you find most valuable. Chances are someone else will find the topic just as valuable.

7. Ask questions – Encourage interaction! Write something that will get people enthusiastic about commenting. Interacting with customers can restaurants understand customers need and want. Moreover, restaurants promote the better product in the market place.

8. Check back and often – It’s important to check in on your blog from time to time and see if there are any new comments you should respond to. Some commenting systems will also allow you to set up alerts when someone else has commented. Because of checking the customers’ comments or feedback frequently, restaurant can figure out customers’ need immediately. (Rickershauser, 2013)

Reference:

Dan. R (2013) 10 best practices for corporate blogging. Retrieved from: http://www.campaignercrm.com/en/community/blog/crm/post/10-best-practices-for-corporate-blogging/

4th posting

We know that the benefits of using social media are profound. Through social networking, many businesses have grown, and individual users have blossomed many great friendships and found support when needed. Social media can be a huge blessing. However, at the same time, if you are not careful with how you use it, social media can be a huge curse. Two to three years ago, social media was an entity most restaurant brands were still trying to figure out. Now, it’s not only a necessity, but consumers expect immediate interaction with their favorite brands. That’s a tall task, considering the number of people using channels such as Twitter and Facebook. For the restaurant also get benefits from the social media, meanwhile social media is bringing risks to the restaurant.

Nowadays, people live in the technology era and they are also talk about their life by social media. Moreover, they also interact with other people. Customers always talk restaurant service or products in the social media, even the negative comment or positive comment. However, sometimes, social media ruin the restaurant image seriously.

I will give an example about Applebee restaurant story. On January, Applebee fired one of  its waitresses after posting the receipt she received from a poster on which was written her excuse for failing to tip on Facebook: ”I give God 10%,”Whe wrote, “Why do you get 18?”

Applebee’s claimed that the waitress violated the privacy of a customer and violated one of the terms of her contract.

Naturally, social media users did not take kindly to this and many an hour was spent criticizing the company, posting comments on its Facebook page and raging about it on Twitter.

One user wrote: “What happens on the Internet stays on the internet. This was deleted by Applebee’s shortly after this disaster went viral.”

Another user wrote: “The internet has already recorded that you have no qualms posting the exact same customer information when it is good feedback and not a snide comment by a horrible person. When a lawyer gets wind of this, I would get ready to grab my ankles.” (Porter, 2013)

This example told us that sometimes, social media ruin some of brand image badly and some of comment or things are recoded on the Internet longtime. Moreover, companies hard to fix the negative image and customers don’t forgive companies mistakes easily.

To sum up, restaurant or other companies should manage their social media and they need to try to do the fewer mistakes in the social media. One mistake may ruin their image badly and this record perhaps will exist everlasting.

Reference:

Claire. P (2013) US Restaurant Applebee’s Commits ‘Social Media Suicide’. Retrieved from: http://www.news.com.au/technology/biztech/us-restaurant-applebees-commits-social-media-suicide/story-fn5lic6c-1226570581548

Successful Mobile Application (3rd post)

Welcome to my third blog post. This post I will talk about mobile application. With technology developing, most of people are using the smartphone and it can apply to many of application. Following that many of business are trying to discover the mobile application importance. Many of consumers are connecting to the company through mobile application. There is a lot of restaurant application in the mobile apps area, such as Yelp, Where To Eat and Urban spoon.The info-graphic not only shows you which restaurant apps are downloaded the most, but it helpfully includes each app’s rankings for Android and iOS, along with the star ratings each has received.

Restaurant owners, this list could be especially helpful to you, keeping you aware of where your customers might be reviewing your business, as well as where you might want to make sure your business is listed. You aren’t doing that yet? Your competitors probably are.Weekend revelers, you might not have seen many of these restaurant apps on the list, one of which could become your new favorite. Having the right restaurant app can help you maximize your weekend, avoiding any culinary experience. (White, 2013)

Except for these applications, there are many of another individual restaurant application. In this week post, I want to talk about my favorite restaurant application “Starbucks”.

Starbucks mobile application is one of the most successful individual restaurant applications. I really love to use this apps and I think this app is very useful and convenience. Customers can download this app through Android or IPhone. There are the Starbucks app features.

1.Pay for your purchases with your Starbucks Card.

2.Track your Stars and redeem your My Starbucks Rewards.

3.Reload your Starbucks Card’s balance.

4.Get directions to the nearest store, search by amenities and store hours.

5.Explore coffees, beverages, food and nutritional information.

6.Enjoy our free Pick of the Week songs.

7.Send eGifts instantly to your contacts.

8.Stay informed by being the first to hear of special offers. (Starbucks, 2013)

Additionally, Starbucks also encourage customers to advise how to improve application. Thus, Starbucks are trying to catch the customers’ need and want. Moreover, it is trying the best to satisfy customers.

Starbucks application provides convenience to customers. Firstly, customers don’t need to pay with cash or credit card and they only scan the mobile to pay for their order. People usually with mobile so that it very comfortable. Second, customers can get many of Starbucks information through application, such as latest promotion, eGifts and new menu. Therefore, customers easy to realize the latest news and they can pick their need service. Third, customers can order their menu from mobile application. Customers pick the nearest store and order the menu, and then they can pick up order quickly. This service is my favorite. Through this service, customers don’t need to wait long time and also they can pick the their favorite menu.

Reference:

Charlie. W (2013) Maximize Your Weekend with the 35 Top Most Popular Restaurant Apps. Retrieved from: http://mashable.com/2013/02/16/restaurant-apps/

Starbucks (2013) Starbucks for iPhone. Retrieved from: http://www.starbucks.com/coffeehouse/mobile-apps/mystarbucks

Social media application (2nd blog)

In today’s society, roughly 46% of American adults own smartphones (as of 2012). With almost half of the U.S. using these devices, it’s no wonder that businesses in all fields are doing their best to make their company mobile-friendly. Restaurants across America have been working over the years to bring two of my favorite things together: social media and food. How can a restaurant adequately engage their customers through mobile phones? The two biggest ways include online ordering and delivery apps and rewards apps.

Online Ordering/Delivery

Delivery.com. This online-ordering/delivery mobile app and website started back in (you guessed it) 2004. Delivery.com allows users to order “Food. Booze. Groceries.” from the comfort of wherever they are. For the restaurant, this app helps merchants reach out to consumers in a new way. Also, this platform allows them to register their restaurant or business for Delivery.com online for free. For the consumer, this app allows one to find local businesses to order and request delivery from, whether it be for groceries, a drink, or a meal.

Snapfinger. This mobile app and website that started back in 2004 allows users to order their meals from various restaurants digitally and have them delivered. Businesses/parties can also place group orders on this application. They offer a feature that lets the consumer save past orders, in case they want to go with a previous favorite menu item. For the restaurant, this app is great for eliminating the frustrations of call-in orders, and puts new, smaller restaurants on the maps to locals using this app. For the consumer, this app is great at giving real-time menu options, taking away any items that the restaurant may be out of at the moment, and giving the consumer fair warning if the restaurant is backlogged.

 

Rewards Program Apps

Foursquare. This widely known mobile app allows users to check-in at their current location. After checking in, the consumer can then leave a tip and upload a picture. For the restaurant, Foursquare provides free tools for social media engagement with a wide audience of users. The mobile app states that businesses can “attract new customers or reward loyal ones by posting updates, listing events, or offering specials to entice people to stop by your business.” For the consumer, the individual “use[s] it to find the best place to go based on what their friends & experts recommend.” Above this, they can receive specials at various places they check-in.

Belly Card. This mobile app is the equivalent to a digital punch card. Consumers can scan their smartphone on the in-store iPad in order to receive points at each location and earn rewards. For the restaurant, Belly Card offers a pay-per-month program where businesses can receive a tablet with the belly app, loyalty cards to give to consumers, an account manager, and more. For the consumer, aside from earning points and rewards just by scanning their smartphone, Belly Card is working on “Belly Bites,” a way for consumers to try samples of different menu items through the Belly app.

 

 

Social media tools (First post)

This blog is for my social media course project. Before, I didn’t follow any social media and after taking this course, I followed Twitter account and opened this blog. This is my fist post and this is about social media tools. I will discuss the many kinds of social media tools and this is used by many of business.

Nowadays, there are many of social media tools available in the market place and more and more businesses or companies use the social media tools. Actually, in the many area of market place, companies can’t leave social media in the technology era.

There are 5 top social media tools from 50 top tools for social media.

1.Alterian/SDL ($) | Alterian is now SDL, an integrated platform that blends the marketing analytics, campaign management, and social media capabilities from Alterian with those of SDL. This website provide many kinds of languages and there are many of services, such as global business consulting, global operational improvement consulting and investor relationships.

 

2.Argyle Social ($) | Identify and engage with more prospects, qualify and quantify better leads, and build and maintain stronger relationships by linking social media actions to the marketing platforms you’re already using. With Argyle Social, you can use your brand’s social interactions to uncover new prospects, drive prospects to leads, and deepen your relationships with your existing prospects and customers. Argyle Social was founded in 2009 and today has 10 employees and hundreds of happy customers. This social media tool is mainly do the B2B social marketing.

3.BackTweets (Free) | Track how many people are talking about you, who’s talking, and what they’re saying. You can search through a tweet archive for URLs sent via Twitter, including results for full URL links, shortened URLs, and URLs without the “www” prefix. This is twitter search tool. This tool is comfortable than Twitter.

4.BlitzMetrics ($) | Social media dashboards for your brand that monitor content across Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Tumblr, and more. It helps you benchmark against your competitors, learn which demographics are the most active, and track content performance so you can improve your reach and engagement.

5.Bottlenose ($) | A tool that provides live social intelligence by analyzing activity across all the major social networks. Use it to search, monitor, analyze, target, and engage in real time, all from one place.

 

Before, I don’t understand about any of these social media tools. When I search about social media tools, I found that many of useful social media tools and these tools are providing lot opportunities to marketers. I will attend marketing career and I can choose many of social media tools for my career. I will post more article about social media and search and analyze more information about social media. I hope I can learn more knowledge about social media.

Thanks.

Li

 

Reference:

Pam. D (2013) 50 Top Tools for Social Media Monitoring, Analytics, and Management. Retrieved from: http://socialmediatoday.com/pamdyer/1458746/50-top-tools-social-media-monitoring-analytics-and-management-2013